Freedom Rankings Research Articles

Assessment of Impact of Country Business Ranking on Economi c Development: An Empirical Analysis

Purpose: The World Bank's “Ease of Doing Business” index, among other business rankings, can help a country's economic progress by attracting foreign investments, encouraging entrepreneurship, and improving the business climate. Superior rankings indicate an optimised environment for business activities, which could boost investments, job opportunities, and overall economic growth. The research is conducted to assess the impact of a country's business ranking on economic development. Design/methodology/approach: The Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) method was used to assess the impact of a country's business ranking on its economic trajectory. The official World Bank report was used to obtain data from 2015 to 2021. Panel data of Global Innovation Ranking, Ease of Doing Business Ranking, and Business Freedom Ranking from 2016 to 2021 is the basis of this study. The researcher has used a conceptual framework to establish and understand the dependence among the dependent and independent variables. For measuring statistical association, the researcher has used structural equation modelling and path diagram along with correlation and regression analysis. The correlation has been used to assess their association, while the researcher has used regression to determine the impact of country business ranking. Findings: The investigator investigated the impact of India's standings in the Global Innovation Ranking, Ease of Doing Business Ranking, and Business Freedom Ranking on its Economic Development, specifically GDP, in this study. The study's findings show that India's business rankings have a significant impact on its economic development. Such global business rankings provide critical data points for policymakers, businesses, and investors to make informed decisions, thereby promoting economic growth. Furthermore, the study examined the effects of GDP growth on the combustion of fossil fuels, as measured in million tonnes, emphasising the environmental consequences of economic expansion. Research limitations/implications: It's imperative to note that this is just an estimate, and the actual relationship between the variables in the population may differ from this estimate. The estimate is based on the sample data used to fit the model and may not accurately reflect the true relationship in the population. Further analysis and interpretation of the model's goodness of fit and consideration of other factors, such as outliers or omitted variables, are essential to fully apprehend the relationship between “GIR” and the dependent variable. The results of global business rankings can help policymakers identify areas for improvement in their country's business environment. By focusing on the areas where their country is lagging behind, they can develop policies and initiatives to attract more investment, create a more favourable business environment, and support economic growth. Businesses can use the results of global rankings to evaluate potential locations for expansion or investment. It can provide insights into the ease of starting and running a business, access to credit, property rights protection, and other important factors to businesses. Investors can also use the results of global rankings to make informed decisions about where increased investment and economic growth. Global business rankings generally provide valuable information that policymakers, businesses, and investors can use to make informed decisions and support economic development. Originality/value: I hereby attest that the research paper I have submitted is the result of my own independent and unique labor. All of the sources from which the thoughts and passages were derived have been properly credited. The work has not been submitted for publication anywhere and is devoid of any instances of plagiarism.

Adaptive preferences, self-expression and preference-based freedom rankings

Abstract If preference-based freedom rankings are based on all-things-considered preferences, they risk judging phenomena of adaptive preferences as freedom enhancing. As a remedy, it has been suggested to base preference-based freedom rankings on reasonable preferences. But this approach is also problematic. This article argues that the quest for a remedy is unnecessary. All-things-considered preferences retain information on whether the availability of an option contributes to the value that freedom has for a person’s self-expression. If preference-based freedom rankings use all-things-considered preferences to evaluate whether an option contributes to a person’s self-expression, they are immune to the problem posed by adaptive preferences.

Coping with Hate: Exploring Indian Journalists’ Responses to Online Harassment

ABSTRACT In India, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) employs a digital army of right-wing supporters to harass journalists who are critical of the party's Hindu-nationalist ideology. As a result, the country's press freedom rankings have significantly declined over the past decade. While scholars have examined the discursive strategies used by online Hindu nationalists against journalists, how reporters cope with these attacks remains unknown. This study investigates how Indian media professionals perceive the personal and professional consequences of harassment for themselves and the coping strategies they use to combat digital hate. In-depth interviews with 24 journalists reveal that they employ mechanisms such as strategic social disconnection, formation of alliance networks, and working for non-profit news sites and international media organizations to overcome the effects of social media harassment. The analysis also highlights that commercial media that are subservient to the Modi government failed to protect their reporters, while independent media outlets provide much more support to their employees. The findings underscore the need for social media companies to promptly respond to content flagged by journalists and allocate additional resources to moderate hate speech in India's local languages to safeguard journalists from sustained online abuse.

Influence of Media Regulation Mechanisms on the Infodemic Narrative Process (A Comparative Analysis of the Media Environment of Pakistan and Norway).

During the COVID-19 pandemic media all over the world have faced a new challenge – an infodemic, which is defined as a rapid increase in information volume of varying degrees of reliability related to a particular event in a short period of time. Indepth fact-checking of such great amount of media coverage during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic turned out to be impossible even for journalists in those countries where extremely reliable tools for verifying information had been in place long before the pandemic. This study hypothesizes that in countries with strict media control, exercised by the authorities, an infodemic is a more serious problem than in democratic and pluralistic countries, which in turn often leads to fatal consequences for citizens (e.g., vaccination refusal or boycott of personal protective equipment). The media systems of Pakistan and Norway have been chosen for the comparative analysis, as well as the infodemic narratives of these two states circulating in the media. This choice was based on Norway’s first place in the press freedom ranking and one of the lowest scores in this ranking by Pakistan at the same time. The authors came to the following conclusion: The more substantial the influence of the authorities on the media is, the more frequently they become a source of dissemination of inaccurate information, which results in a decrease of trust in the media. At the same time, the independence from government structures and the influence of politicians allows the media to restructure their work quickly and successfully cope with an infodemic and its consequences.

SENTINET: A DEEP SENTIMENT ANALYSIS NETWORK FOR POLITICAL MEDIA BIAS DETECTION

India has the highest circulation of newspapers in the world, but unfortunately also has high media bias rates and one of the lowest press freedom rankings for democracies. A biased media prevents citizens from receiving information that might be essential to public wellbeing by filtering information through a lens that supports government interests first. Media bias plays an influencing role even at the voting booth as propaganda can skew voter decisions and perceptions of what is true in this era of fake news. It's vital to keep an eye on bias in the news and to provide a platform where people can get unbiased and reliable news. Researchers in sentiment analysis and bias detection have been using various techniques to achieve higher accuracy to detect media bias. This study aims to take a different technical approach to the problem of Indian political media bias detection by developing SentiNet - a graphical processing unit (GPU) accelerated modified convolution neural network (CNN) model consisting of linearly inverted depth-wise separable convolutions capable of classifying news as either ‘unbiased’ or ‘biased’ from twitter data. Because of its simple architecture and lesser number of tuning parameters, it is observed that SentiNet is a good fit in terms of accuracy and loss function and its training time reduces by 50% when using a GPU. From results, Republic TV and BBC emerged as the most biased towards ruling party and Opposition parties respectively. NDTV and News19 emerged unbiased towards ruling party with balanced reporting. India TV has emerged as unbiased towards Opposition parties. From twitter political discourse, it is found that parties discuss themselves or their opposing parties and seldom issues of national interest. The research and the proposed robust model can be extended to other social media and be analysed for a bigger social network.

Country Comparisons on the Concept of Economic Freedom: A Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach

Economic freedom is a broad term with numerous aspects. The aim of the study is to increase awareness of the economic freedom components and to provide an analytical approach. Entropy, TOPSIS, ARAS, SAW, Borda Count Method, Clustering, and Spearman correlation analysis were used to assess 40 nations. The countries with the greatest per capita GDP such as Hong Kong, Singapore, and Switzerland are at the top of the economic freedom ranking. On the other side, countries with low per-capita income such as Poland, Thailand, and Russian Federation rank bottom. Governments and officials in low-scoring nations must provide an environment of stability, trust, and facilitation for their residents and foreign investors in terms of trade tariffs, inflation, and account restrictions. Individuals, groups, non-governmental organizations, and institutions should persuade decision-makers and politicians to take novel action plans in terms of taxes, inflation policies, account restrictions, and decision-making in favour of greater freedom.

The Tyranny of Religious Freedom Rankings

In this essay, I discuss three areas where I’ve identified problems with religious freedom datasets and how they are used by academics and policymakers. First, I discuss the implications of the problematic ways in which religious freedom rankings are being used. Second, I argue that religious freedom violations that can only be observed at the subnational level tend to be overlooked by religious freedom datasets. Finally, I stress the importance of understanding the multidimensionality of religious freedom to avoid oversimplifications of reality. I provide practical recommendations for the improvement of religious freedom datasets and their correct use by policymakers.

Сучасний стан зовнішньоторговельних відносин Сінгапуру, Республіки Індонезія та Малайзії

The article is aimed at determining the current state of foreign trade relations between Singapore, the Republic of Indonesia and Malaysia. The modern development of trade in Southeast Asia, namely in Singapore, the Republic of Indonesia and Malaysia, allowed them to take an important place in world-wide trade. The government’s policy of openness of the economy of Singapore, the Republic of Indonesia and Malaysia, resulted in an active development of foreign trade of countries that joined the World Trade Organization, which had a positive influence on the development of their own trade. In recent years, these countries have achieved a high level of macroeconomic indicators. There was an increase in GDP, GDP per capita, etc. Significant fluctuations in economic development were associated with the global COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a decrease in the main indicators of Singapore, the Republic of Indonesia and Malaysia and a significant increase in the unemployment rate in the countries under study. The article defines that the main partners of Singapore, the Republic of Indonesia and Malaysia for export-import operations are Asian countries, which is due to close geographical location, close cooperation within the framework of the АСЕАН association and historically formed ties. The commodity structure of exports and imports of Singapore, the Republic of Indonesia and Malaysia in 2020 is analyzed. It is noted that the main export items of these countries are: electric machines and related equipment, mineral fuel, mineral oils and their distillation products, etc. The place of Singapore, the Republic of Indonesia and Malaysia in international rankings is analyzed. Thus, in the Competitiveness Ranking and Economic Freedom Ranking, Singapore ranks first and is the country with the freest economy among the countries of the Asia-Pacific region. The Republic of Indonesia and Malaysia need to continue reforming their sectors of the national economy to improve their place in the rankings.

Income vs. economic freedom threshold and energy utilities in Russia: an environmental quality variableness?

As countries compete to achieve a better economic freedom in the last decades, there is almost no empirical query on the likelihood of its environmental quality (de)merit and/or its effect on the attainment of Global Goals. In the case of Russia, the country with a relatively unimpressive economic freedom ranking according to Fraser Institute (2020) and Heritage.org (Heritage 2020), the current study examined the validity of the rise and fall hypothesis via-a-vis U- or inverted U-shaped hypothesis of economic freedom and carbon emissions in comparison to the rise and fall hypothesis of income-environmental degradation relationship. The study found a U-shaped hypothesis and an inverted U-shaped hypothesis for economic freedom-carbon emissions relationship in the short run and long run respectively as against an inverted U-shaped hypothesis for income-carbon emissions relationship in both terms. Moreover, coal, natural gas, and oil energy utilizations that are the country's main energy sources exert a significant and damaging effect on the country's environmental quality in the short and long run. However, the study posited that nuclear energy utilization in Russia has an environmental quality benefit in both short run and long run. Importantly, this study offers a significantly useful economic and energy policy for Russia, thus reenacting the country's 2030 Global Goals outlook.

Press freedom in 10 African nations: Citizen attitudes and global rankings

Press freedom is said to be a necessary pillar of democracy. As many sub-Saharan African nations move towards creating or strengthening democracies, examining their levels of press freedom may be an important element. This study utilizes public opinion data from 10 nations in the sub-Saharan African region and international press freedom rankings from Reporters Without Borders to better understand both how important (or not) citizens view press freedom to be in their country and how those beliefs compare to global metrices between 2011 and 2018. Results show clear differences in citizen beliefs about press freedom across countries, but no clear relationship between citizen beliefs and global rankings. A connection between individual perceptions and global rankings may take more time to manifest, and/or a nation’s cultural values and political landscape likely have the strongest impact on citizen beliefs.

THE POLITICS OF INTERNET FREEDOM RANKINGS: A CALL FOR A COMPARATIVE FRAMEWORK FOR ASSESSING INTERNET FREEDOM

This paper critically assesses current regimes of internet governance and the role of internet freedom rankings therein. In particular, it aims to initiate a debate ultimately leading to the development of a ground-breaking comparative framework for assessing internet policy, departing from the assumption that current frameworks for measuring internet freedom are predicated too strictly on the dichotomy of democracy/non-democracy. Most stakeholders involved in benchmarking internet freedom approach it from a Western-leaning perspective that uncritically assumes that democracy-related practices are embedded in the very origins of the internet and therefore, the levels of democratisation can serve as valid indicators of internet freedom. As a result, these frameworks lack $2 when applied to invasive policies and public administration practices implemented in democracies, while lacking $2 when applied to policies and practices in non-democracies. The conceptualization and operationalization of the concept of internet freedom that underlies internet freedom rankings is of particular importance since the promotion of internet freedom is an integral part of foreign policy and rankings serve as a source of information and justification for prioritizing funding and efforts. Rankings can also impact states’ reputations, serve as advocacy tools in public diplomacy, but also impede justified criticism aimed at states who score well on key indicators. Through this intervention piece, we aim to initiate debate on developing an alternative framework for assessing internet policy. Shifting attention away from the singular focus on regime kind and politics enables us to develop a more complex system of coordinates for assessment.

Neutral freedom and freedom as control

I present a model of freedom as control. Control is measured by the preferences of a decision-maker, or judge, who values flexibility and is neutral towards outcomes ex ante. Formally, I explore the consequences of adding a neutrality axiom to the Dekel et al. (Econometrica 69(4):891–934, 2001) axioms for preference for flexibility. I characterize the consensus of all neutral judges about which choice situations embody more freedom. The theory extends the freedom ranking literature to situations where agents have imperfect control, as modeled by choices among lotteries. In a voting context, the consensus of neutral judges coincides with Banzhaf power.

Comparison of fuzzy clustering methods in economic freedom ranking in Asia-Pacific

Economic freedom can be defined as freedom in which individuals can perform their economic activities freely without being exposed to the pressures and constraints. The aim of the studies on the classification of countries according to their economic freedoms is to determine the place of the countries in the world or in the continent where they are located. In this way, the status of the countries with sustainable growth and high welfare is determined. In this study, it is aimed to rank Asian countries according to economic freedom data. In contrast to many classifications and sorting studies, the present study attempts to determine the best sorting method by comparing multiple methods. As a result of the economic freedoms published by the Heritage Foundation every year, the conditions of Asian countries between 2015-2019 were determined. Fuzzy C-Means, Gath-Geva and Gustafson-Kessel methods, which are the three most commonly used methods, were used in the fuzzy clustering analysis. The results obtained from all fuzzy clustering methods were compared and interpreted with the results of the Heritage Foundation year by year. According to all analysis results, it can be said that the Fuzzy C-means method is more successful for Economic Freedom data and classification studies. According to the Fuzzy C-Means method, the three best Asian countries were Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia respectively

“Post-Truth” Politics, Journalistic Corruption and the Process of Self-Othering

The poorest EU member-state Bulgaria also has the lowest press freedom ranking, significantly lagging behind all EU members, including neighbouring Romania and Greece. While “a laggard” in many respects, the country has leadership potential in at least one area: “post-truth” politics is not a new phenomenon. A prime example of its powerful impact was the ascent to power of the country's former king whose promise to change Bulgarians’ lives in 800 days led to the electoral victory of his newly formed political movement in 2001 and his subsequent appointment as Prime Minister. A 2016–2017 survey of Bulgarian journalists as part of the Worlds of Journalism study shows they have grappled for years with the kind of issues their Western colleagues have been lamenting about over the past few months—from covert collusions with political and business elites to a range of corruption practices such as bribes, “subsidised” smear campaigns and “sponsorships” of TV programmes in exchange for cover-ups. A resilience technique adopted by journalists is that of self-othering, which involves a strong condemnation of the “dire” state of journalism and distancing from the unethical practices that plague their profession without assuming any responsibility. This paper “unpacks” this process of self-othering.

Analiza nastrojów politycznych w zakresie wolności prasy

W artykule zastosowano komputerową analizę politycznego sentymentu do tekstów opisujących członków rządu, opublikowanych na portalach newsowych w Kazachstanie i w Polsce. Media w Kazachstanie znacznie bardziej krytycznie odnoszą się do polityków niż media w Polsce, mimo że Kazachstan w międzynarodowych rankingach wolności prasy jest oceniany jako „kraj pozbawiony wolności”, a Polska – jako „kraj wolny”. Prezentowana metoda pozwala także na określenie realnej struktury władzy. Artykuł pokazuje, że rankingi powinny zostać uzupełnione o analizę politycznego sentymentu.

Cultural Indicators and Global Freedom of the Press

This study sought to determine if cultural variables might explain differences in press freedom across nations. The results confirmed that two of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions – power distance and individualism – explained a significant amount of variance in press freedom rankings produced by Freedom House and Reporters Without Borders. For example, the two factors combined to explain 48% of the variance in Reporters Without Borders rankings and accounted for 42% of the variance in Freedom House’s civil liberties scores. The results suggest that those who seek to promote freedom of the press around the world would be wise to pay more attention to cultural factors that may stand in the way of change.

Neutral Freedom and Freedom as Control

I present a model of freedom as control. Control is measured by the preferences of a decision-maker, or judge, who values flexibility and is neutral towards outcomes ex ante. Formally, I explore the consequences of adding a neutrality axiom to the Dekel, Lipman and Rustichini (2001) axioms for preference for flexibility. I characterize the consensus of all neutral judges about which choice situations embody more freedom. The theory extends the freedom ranking literature to situations where agents have imperfect control, as modeled by choices among lotteries. In a voting context, the consensus of neutral judges coincides with Banzhaf power.

The Validity of Global Press Ratings

This study examines year-by-year correlations between Freedom House and Reporters Sans Frontières' (RSF) press freedom scores for countries over a 13-year period (2002–2014). The goal of the study is to test the hypothesis that, further into the age of digital disclosure, as press abuses and harassment of journalists are more widely reported, press freedom ranking systems are gradually becoming more precise and, therefore, correlations between the two indices will strengthen over time. To further assess concurrent validity of the indices, correlations between both indices and scores on the United Nations Human Development Index are also provided. The study also examines changes in the indices' rankings of countries over time within six world regions: the Middle East and North Africa, the Americas, Western Europe, Eastern Europe/Central Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia. In so doing, this study adds a degree of understanding to the validity of two press freedom indices that are routinely cited in journalistic reportage and trade journals, as well as many scholarly publications. Results suggest that the two organizations' scoring of press freedom has become significantly more correlated in the years 2002–2014, and the primary cause of the increased agreement is that RSF's ratings became substantially more aligned with Freedom House's scores during this period. Both indices' ratings are significantly correlated with countries' United Nations Human Development Index scores.

Democratisation and New Media Dilemmas: a Case Study of Press Freedom in Turkey

Turkey, as a candidate for EU membership, has been on a path to 'advanced' democratisation since 2002, under the government of the AKP (Justice and Development Party). The AKP, as a pro-Islamist party, defines itself as ideologically and socially moderate and economically liberal. The AKP has made a lot of advances on the way to democratisation; unfortunately, however, liberty of the press and freedom of expression generally have deteriorated considerably. There are about 60 journalists in prison in Turkey, and a report on press freedom published by Freedom House in 2011 gives the status of the country's press as partly free and places Turkey in 112th position in terms of global press freedom rankings. This paper focuses on freedom of speech, the arrest of journalists accused of being part of the alleged 'Ergenekon' coup plot against the Turkish government in February 2011 and the suppression of an unpublished book, written by investigative journalist Ahmet Şık, The army of the Imam. Despite all the efforts by the government, however, a campaign on Facebook ('I also have Ahmet Şık's book') protesting the arrest of the journalists and the suppression of the book has resulted in a draft of the book circulating on the Internet. Referring to these events, which were taking place against the background of Turkey's 12 June 2011 election campaign, the paper will offer a comparative study of the situation of the Turkish press between 1990 and 2011. This will also serve to explain current parameters under which the media in Turkey operate in light of policies adopted by the current government. The paper will consider the following questions: has Turkey made an attempt to develop 'advanced' democratisation as claimed by the prime minister? Are these journalists targeted because of their journalistic research or their involvement in the alleged 'Ergenekon' coup plot? What is the role of the political elite and media in the creation of public opinion in regard to Turkish democracy? Do press freedom and freedom of expression really exist as hallmarks of democracy in Turkey?

International economic freedoms, banks and the market crisis of 2007–2009

The objective of this article is to test whether banks in highly regulated countries performed better than banks in less regulated countries during the market crisis of 2007–2009. Bank index returns from 46 countries were examined from 1 October 2007 to 3 March 2009. The analysis revealed that high levels of government and fiscal freedoms, measured by the Heritage foundation freedom rankings, resulted in higher banking index returns that were highly significant. In contrast, high levels of financial freedom from regulation resulted in lower banking index returns that were marginally significant. The results suggest that regulators must find a delicate balance between improving the regulatory structure while not increasing the government or fiscal involvement in the economy. The results also indicate that simply increasing financial regulation will not reduce or eliminate the magnitude of future market crisis as regulation was only marginally significant in explaining banking index returns during the market crises.